Tribute (Arc 1 of the Favor Series)
by FeverFeed
Summary: Josh Levinson is a Tribute from District 10 with a secret that might cost him everything or, if he's very lucky, win him the Games this year. Being Human Syfy characters in the Hunger Games universe, AU. Character death, and most likely slash in later chapters.
1. Reaping Day

I don't even smell the meat anymore when I get up out of bed in the morning. It's there, always, hanging in the air, stronger some days and more subtle on others. It gets steadily worse, and more awful and rank, the closer I get to work, though I'm not going to be going to work today. On my first day at the slaughterhouse I almost passed out from the stench. I was convinced I'd never wash it out of my clothes and hair, and I was right; I probably never will.

You could get to crave the vegetarian shtick in District 10.

Too bad that kind of lifestyle is sort of impossible to maintain when everyone's main concern is keeping enough food on the table.

I hear her before she invades my room, but that doesn't mean I have time to react. One minute I'm alone, counting my sore muscles and the next second my door bursts open and Emily has thrown herself into my personal space.

"_Yessss_, Reaping Day," she groans, her sigh zero parts sarcastic and unabashedly reverent. She flops down at the foot of my bed, landing square on both of my feet, and I squirm and kick out from under her. My insane little sister is the only person in all of District 10 who enjoys Reaping Day.

"You're an idiot," I state for her, plainly, though this is far from the first time I've suggested it. Emily rolls on my bed, pleased as punch, and I swing my feet over to finally touch down on the worn wood floors of our one-story shack. I know she's going to defend her "Reaping Day is the best day" argument again before she even starts, and I try to tune her out as I get out the only shirt I own with no holes or patches.

"If I'm gonna get picked, I'm gonna get picked," Emily says for the umpteenth time. I can practically hear the eye-roll. "What's the use spending a day off from work bitching and moaning? Or hyperventilating?" I feel her jab me in the back with something—her heel, I realize, and I squirm away from her foot. It's probably dirty. Plus, she's poking fun at the panic attack I had during my first Reaping. My sister will never be accused of being the nicest of people.

"I dunno, Em. Maybe we spend our time worrying about it because it's scary as fuck. Or because running around celebrating Reaping Day feels like some kind of, I dunno. Challenge to the Gods or some crap." I make a vague gesture skyward and she snorts, loud, behind me. Before she can flay me alive with sarcasm I plow on. "Plus, it's pretty damn disrespectful to the people who got Reaped the year before." I pause. "And the people who are going in this year."

I can tell I've made her uncomfortable. A childhood friend of ours, Julia, was Reaped a few years ago. Like virtually all the other Tributes from Ten, she did not come home.

Still, that was long ago enough that Emily has moved on and returned to her bizarre coping mechanism-slash-weirdly optimistic outlook. I can't tell which it is most days. "If _I _got Reaped I'd still want people to laze around and enjoy their day off."

"Don't even say that," I groan, realizing I mis-buttoned my shirt. My fingers never work on Reaping Day, though to be fair, they aren't that talented every other day of the year, either.

"Say that I want people to have fun?" Em challenges.

"Say that you're gonna get Reaped. In any way, shape or form. Even in hypotheticals."

"Oooh, four dollar word," she teases, and I give up trying to talk sense into her. Maybe there's something to her blind optimism and utter crass. Whatever happens today will be completely out of my hands, and I'm sure it must feel kind of nice to embrace that with open arms.

Not like that's ever going to be a possibility for me.

Breakfast is waiting downstairs, and as usual, it's a huge one. Mom cooks to soothe her nerves, and normally you'll hear no complaints from me on that front. Only I always get sort of queasy on Reaping Days, so it's a mis-match when it comes to the amount of food provided and the amount I can shove in my face before I feel like I'm going to throw up. Dad is already dressed for the event, leaning against the threshold to the hallway with his arms tightly folded over his chest. He's smiling at us, but he's forgotten himself—normally his body language wouldn't be this telling.

I lift a hand stiffly at him and grin in what I know is a plastic way. It's not that I mean to look fake. I'm just this awkward with everyone, even my own family, and doubly so on Reaping Day. Mom and Dad know it and don't give me grief over it.

"Jeez," Em says as she throws herself down into a chair. It creaks dangerously from under her—like everything else in our house, it's falling apart. "You guys are acting like someone died."

"That's not funny, Emily," my mother says, but there's no real gumption behind it. She just looks pale and distracted, the way she always does this time of year, though if I give her a look that borders too much on concern she'll hitch a bright smile to her face and start fussing over my hair and clothes. Instead I turn my attention to my food.

"So," Dad says, and I fight back a grimace. I know what's coming. "How is everyone feeling? Do either of you want to talk about what you're experiencing this morning?"

Every year it's the same thing. Dad is one of the supervisors at the slaughterhouse I started working at this year, and he's taken it upon himself to serve as a psychiatrist and counselor of sorts to the men and women who work under him. Only problem with that is that he tends to bring his work mindset home with him.

Emily snorts, then says, "I'm feeling very angry and _impotent," _giving me a double-eyebrow wiggle for God knows what reason. I frown at her, not understanding the implication but not liking it anyway. "I am awash in helplessness and despair."

"And humor is your coping mechanism, darling… as always," Dad says, sighing but giving Em a half-smile. He should know better than to expect any deep replies from her by now.

Unfortunately that means the spotlight's on me now. I try not to shrink down in my seat as he studies me. "How about you, Joshua? You going to supply me with a more serious answer?"

My dad used to call me Josh, but once I hit Reaping age it's always been "Joshua." I used to have a problem with it, but I barely notice it anymore. Trying to calculate the perfect response—one that'll seem sincere enough that Dad will get off my back, but simple enough that he won't press for more—I push my food around on my plate.

"I'm nervous, like most years," I admit. "But it's not as bad, the more years go by."

"Strange," Dad notes. "Since each boy or girl's chance of getting Reaped increases as they get older."

_Yikes, thanks Dad, _I think grimly, but manage to keep it off my face. I shrug, not sure what to say to that.

"I don't want to worry you," Dad says. "I just want to make sure you're not trying to repress the way you really feel about this."

"Yeah, okay," I say, and Mom, bless her, steps in.

"You'd better finish up your food soon," she warns. "I'd like to beat the rush to the square."

* * *

Mom was right. We start off for the square a good hour early but we still get swept up and crushed in the foot-traffic heading down from our subsection of the district. If there's one thing I can say for Ten, it's that we all get a lot of exercise. Carts are used almost exclusively for hauling product and equipment, and if it's got four hooves it's probably going to end up in the slaughterhouse, which makes pack mammals that are used for transportation a rarity. I can't help but wonder what in the world the holdup is all about. We do this every year and yet we always seem to run into a huge traffic jam the closer we get to the square. I'm not exactly in a rush but still. Slugging along at a half a mile per hour in the sun isn't pleasant, and I'd rather get to the square, sign in, and find a spot to stand and zone out until this is all over.

Em is stubborn as hell, and it's a mark of how important a day this is to my mom that she's won the argument over whether or not Em dresses up for it. Right now my sister is decked out in a dress, something I only get to see roughly once a year, and it gives me some minor satisfaction that she's hating every second of it. For a while she was ranting about it, but once she realized I wasn't listening she gave up and started shamelessly checking out some of the other girls all gussied up in their Reaping Day outfits.

It feels like half my life's passed by the time we make it to the square. I remember how Em was during her first Reaping. She was talking nonstop on the walk down, nervous and trying to hide it, but right before we parted ways into the girls' pen and the boys', she gave me a look. It was just a little thing, a flash of her eyes up to me, a little wider than they should be.

Em's never given me that sort of look again. It's a weird thing to think, I guess, but I almost wish she would. It's not that I want my sister to be scared, or anything. I'm glad she's so much braver than I am. But as she gives me a two-fingered salute and saunters off towards where the other girls are queueing up, I realize that she knows just how powerless I am in the grand scheme of things. Twelve-year-old Emily looked at me like maybe, in some way, shape or form, I could say or do something to make her feel better. Fifteen-year-old Em knows better, and it makes me feel like shit.

It's not the best mindframe to be in as I put my hand out to get the familiar jab of the needle into my index finger. I'm in a daze as I get registered and processed, then herded along the way into the pens.

I call them "pens" because there's really no other way to describe them. It's completely ghetto and I wonder if the other Districts put a little more oomph into their Reapings than we do. Eleven and Twelve, probably not, as I've heard they're in about as much of a state of perpetual poverty as we are, if not worse off. Still, the plastic orange fencing material they have haphazardly laid out in large, lopsided geometric shapes to separate the genders makes it look as if the people in charge only just realized the Reapings were taking place today and had to scramble to erect the gates with anything they could get their hands on. What's sad is this is what it looks like every year.

When I went to my first two Reapings I stuck near the back, as if staying as far away from the front of the group would keep me safe. Dad and I talked about it once I turned fourteen, and he convinced me somehow that moving up to the front would help me conquer my fears. I tried that for my third Reaping, and while it didn't make me feel any better, it at least gave me some things to look at and distract myself with. Now that I'm seventeen it's become a bit of a Reaping Day tradition.

One of the things I find most distracting is our only living past Victor, Aidan Waite. I used to split my attention between him and our other Victor, an old man named Douglas who never tried to look like he was anything less than 100% miserable with life, but he passed away about six months ago, so now only Aidan is left.

He's young, but I can't remember which Games he won, so I can't put a precise number on him. I know he can't be more than ten years older than me, though. He's always early to the Reapings, seating himself unobtrusively to the side of the platform a good fifteen minutes before even the Mayor arrives. He's always in the same outfit, too—old jeans, black boots, a worn leather jacket over a white shirt, his eyes hidden behind broad shades. It's an unusual look for our District, and I wonder if Aidan doesn't realize he stands out, or if he knows and just doesn't care. I've never seen him react to any of the Reapings before—he's perfectly poised, and if any expression goes on behind his sunglasses, I'm not privy to it.

It sort of makes me even more nervous about the prospect of being Reaped, if that's at all possible. I wouldn't want my mentor to be a softie, necessarily, but the idea of having to talk to Aidan for any length of time twists my stomach into knots, even without the prospect of what that would mean for my future. He seems so cold and unreachable, it's hard to imagine him really giving a crap what happens to us.

Our mayor has arrived, and I turn my attention to him. Jeff Westin never struck me as sincere or trustworthy, but as I've heard my dad say more than once, elected officials don't have to be either of those things. He smiles too much, especially today, and I sigh and prepare myself for thirty long minutes of staring at the bug crawling across the back of the boy's shirt in front of me as he pulls out his prepared speech.

I don't know why, but they did away with District Reps when I was a kid, before my first Reaping. Maybe they figured it was redundant, since the past Victors and the District Stylists already know all the ins and outs that are necessary for the Tributes to navigate the Capitol. Maybe they just decided to cut funding. Either way, it's only Aidan and Mayor Westin who are up there now, as Mayor Westin doesn't have a family (anymore, anyway—he cheated on his wife enough times that she had the good sense to leave him.)

While Mayor Westin talks the bug flies away, aiming straight at my face for a second. I flail a little to wave it away and get a few weird looks for my moment of interpretive dance. Maybe the other boys are judging me and how I'd fare in the Games when a bug can still startle me if it moves quickly enough. I push them from my mind and return my focus to Aidan.

You can tell Aidan really hates the Mayor. It's not that he's glaring at him (not that you'd be able to tell behind the shades), but the fact that he never looks at him, not once. He manages to look bored without being outright rude for the entire thirty minute speech, and it's almost enough to take the edge off until I can sense Westin's wrapping up. Then the ball of nerves I'd been pointedly avoiding starts spinning downhill, wildly gaining mass and momentum in my stomach.

Girls first. Westin moves over to a device that reminds me strongly of my grandma's Bingo machine, a relic she liked to bust out and use whenever we had our Sunday evenings to ourselves. Little slips of paper, folded in half and sealed with a single red sticker, are stuffed into the huge devices which have been set up on either side of Westin. He approaches the one to his right first and gives it a huge spin, the little papers flapping and fluttering against each other like a hurricane flurry of hornets. I've got bugs on the brain today.

Mayor Westin is grinning like an idiot while he does this, as if it's fun for him and we should be having fun by proxy. I roll my eyes, a move I wouldn't have been gutsy enough to pull off when I was younger. I still feel like there's a spotlight on me most places I go, though Dad says that's just adolescent self-consciousness that I'm sure to grow out of soon. I know logically not everyone in the world can be paying attention to all of my fuck-ups all of the time, but I can't deny that I've got terrible luck. Particularly with girls. Whenever I do something insubordinate, rude, stupid, ignorant or clumsy, at least ten sets of eyes seem to be on me at the time.

I'm not the only one put off by Mayor Westin's display. There are sighs from around me and some of the boys shift their weight from foot to foot, looking away like his exuberance pains them. Others are tense, though, their faces pale and sweaty. No doubt they have sisters or girlfriends in the female pen they're worried about. And though Em won't do any worrying on her own behalf, I've got that base more than covered for her.

After what seems like a ludicrous amount of time, Mayor Westin selects a slip of paper and walks back to his podium and microphone. He pops the paper open, and though he's been hamming it up this whole time and dragging out the process, I barely have a chance to feel the familiar stomach-sinking thrill of horror in my gut before he reads a name that isn't Emily's.

"Nora Sergeant!"

The name is familiar to me, but I only recognize the girl when she steps up onto the stage. My face twists into what I'm sure is a complicated blend of sadness and discomfort. Nora, of course. I tried to flirt with her once when we were fifteen and it ended disastrously. I think it involved me somehow striking up a metaphor between her and a cow. I know I meant well by it, but I can't for the life of me think what was going through my head at the time.

Nora and I haven't spoken since then, but she would occasionally send me frosty little glances if we ran into one another at the market. Her family's in the slaughter business too, though last I heard she was about to get transfered to work at one of the few hospitals in our district. It's something I want to do too, but I kept telling myself I'd put it off for only a few more months, then a few more, and before I knew it I'd stopped studying altogether and fell into the routine I've been trapped in ever since.

What a horrific waste. A pretty, smart, bold, talented girl, skilled now in saving lives, heading off to get cut down in the Games. _At least it's not Emily, _I tell myself, feeling a wrench of guilt at how grateful I am for that. Nora doesn't deserve this, but maybe this year can be a year where no one I directly know or interact with on a regular basis will be struck by this bloodbath.

Nora's keeping it together so well. She looks like a mirror version of Aidan, face blank and ever so slightly challenging, back straight, arms at her sides. No fidgeting. I wonder if it's a natural toughness or if she's seen some stuff at the hospital that has steeled her for this. Maybe she's terrified and just has a great poker face. It makes me sad that I'll never get to know her well enough to know the answer.

While I've been musing Mr. Westin has moved over to the boys' name-drawing device. He spins it, and as I watch the slips of paper slide and scratch over one another, something strange happens to me.

It's a sense of calm. I can't say what it is; it's like I'm suddenly no longer worried I'll get drawn, like I already know what's going to happen. It feels like I'm tempting fate by feeling that way, and I try to muster up some fear so I won't jinx myself, but it's not happening. I peel my eyes away from Mayor Westin, look back over to Nora and Aidan, and a surge of cold in my stomach is my only warning.

When the name is drawn I'm not surprised at all.

"Joshua Levinson!"


	2. The Train

When I say I'm not surprised, I do not mean that I'm not scared.

I am scared out of my goddamn mind.

For a long second I don't think I move. Then someone gives me a little nudge and I start going like I'm being rude, holding up the show. Even though the odds that I live past the next month are slim to none, I still feel self-conscious inconveniencing others this way.

This is one of the reasons why the odds that I live past the next month are slim to none.

Nora doesn't look at me when I take the stage beside her. I can't tell if Aidan is looking at me because of the shades, but what reason does he have to pay me any mind? We haven't had a Victor since him, so that's at least ten years, at least twenty kids he's had to watch die. I'm sure he won't be doing anything stupid like getting invested in us.

The one thing I'm proud of is that my legs don't shake when I walk. I think the only reason for that is because I'm in shock, though. It doesn't feel real yet. I wonder when it will—when a knife slips between my ribs?

I can't pick faces out of the crowd. It feels too weird to stare too hard into the girls' pen, or where the adults are lined up in crushing masses behind us. I'll just look stupid, glaring and squinting out in the sun to try to find my family, and I know every second counts from now on, because every second will be on camera. I tear my eyes away from the faces of my district and look Mayor Westin in the eyes, somehow. He's slapping my back and acting like I've won a grand prize. How is this my life?

I try to listen to what he's saying in his wrap-up speech, just so I can react accordingly and not look as stunned and stupid as I feel, but it's no good. My brain keeps slipping away on little swells of panic that are then tempered with long moments of a silent, dull droning. It's so surreal one moment and then almost painfully real the next, and I guess my defense mechanism is to switch rapidly between them. I hope to God it isn't showing on my face.

Then it's over, Westin's got my hand in one of his and Nora's in the other, and we're being lifted to the District like we're already champions. I blink, momentarily blinded by something shiny from someone in the crowd, and the first real glimpse Panem gets of me is a wincing, watery-eyed, scrawny seventeen-year-old kid. Then we're being shunted off to the government building behind us.

It never even occurs to me to say anything to Nora in the few moments where the mayor is talking to a few of the Peacekeepers, giving instructions to them about something I can't bring myself to pay attention to. Then she and I are separated, shuttled off to different rooms to wait for our families.

Our families. It hits me right in the stomach and I have to sit down before they even close the door behind me. Here it is, the hyperventilation, the sweats, the shakes. Here's what I had the good sense not to do in the middle of the square, in public, in front of the cameras. How will I ever face my parents and Em?

I don't have a whole lot of time to prepare. The door opens and all I can do is leap to my feet before Em shoves her way into the room, her wide brown eyes finding me at once. For once in her life she doesn't crack a joke, doesn't try to nudge me or lighten the mood the way she normally would. And in that moment that's the only thing in the world I really want. I want my crass, irreverent, insensitive little sister to make me laugh, even though it feels impossible.

Dad and Mom step forward and I can see that mom's already started to cry on the way over. Her eyes are tender and red, but more than anything else she just looks scared. Scared like Em, but in a different way. Em still looks like she's watching me about to get in a slow-motion train wreck, like there's a chance for me but I'll be a goner if she takes her eyes off me even long enough to blink. Mom… mom looks more frightened down to her bones, like she's already trying and failing to imagine a life where she outlives one of her kids.

The next revelation of the day sinks deep into my stomach and I realize my mom has already written me off in some part of her heart as a goner.

Dad swallows hard and approaches me, his hand hovering like he wants to pull me in for a hug or put it on my shoulder. For a faltering, horrible moment he hesitates and I have the overwhelming, uncharacteristic urge to shout at him. _This is probably the last time we're ever going to see each other. You're really going to let some kind of pride or etiquette get in the way of that?_

It's like he can read my mind, because in the next second he's pulled me in for a spine-bending hug and I can't remember the last time my dad actually showed this kind of affection. I had to have been a toddler.

This whole time I've been too stunned and scared to really feel sad, but this is what does me in. I hug my dad back, for the first time in over a decade, for the last time in my life, and burning heat rises in me and escapes from my face in the form of tears.

Mom and Em hover in around us, reaching out and making contact with their hands, and then they find places to latch on around us, creating a warm huddle around me. I develop a headache instantly, like the combined pressure from all of our pain has culminated in my temples.

Then dad's pulling away and talking, and I realize after a second he's giving me advice. I'd grown impatient with and tired of his suggestions over the past many years, but now I drink in every word. My dad's a little much sometimes, but he has always meant well and he's one of the smartest people I've ever known.

"Remember, Josh, this is all a show. You might think the goal is to be the strongest, or the toughest, but it's really to put on the best show. You get sponsors if they like you—no one knows exactly how it works, but you push Aidan, make him tell you everything he knows. And whatever you do, don't imply through anything you do or do not say that you're resentful of being in this situation, even if it's the truth, even if they ask you to be totally honest in your interviews. You do what they tell you. Okay?"

As he talks I find myself wishing fervently I could take him to the Capitol with me. I never realized how much attention he really paid to the Games, but it makes sense. What could be more of a psychological head-fuck than that? I can only pray Aidan will be half as observant and useful.

He only has time to go over a few more things—I should focus on survival skills more than combative ones, never make a fire at night, don't let my sympathies get the better of me. I remember why he's telling me that last one—one year one of our Tributes got taken out when he went to the aid of a twelve-year-old girl who looked hurt, and she stabbed him right in the throat.

The doors open far before I'm ready, and I look at the white-uniformed Peacekeepers standing there like they're my true opponents in the Games. They're here to take my family away, to make this all the more real for me, and all I want to do is shove them out and slam the door in their faces.

Instead my family gives me one last, rushed hug, and then I am alone.

* * *

Once we're on the bullet train that speeds us off towards the Capitol, Nora vanishes into her room. She doesn't say anything or even cast me a second glance before doing so, and while it's awkward, I'm almost glad for it. I don't know what to say to people on the best of days, and having one less thing to think about or focus on isn't a bad thing for me at this point.

What's more annoying is that Aidan is also gone. I didn't even see him board the train, and reason he was probably on it early, just the way he's always early to the Reapings every year. Dad's advice is already weighing heavily on my head—go find Aidan, make him tell you everything he knows—but I tell myself it's okay to rest for just this one moment, to recuperate and recalibrate while I actually have some semblance of privacy.

I find a seat facing one of the sleek plastic windows and watch the countryside rush by in a blur. My eyes automatically try to focus on individual pieces of scenery—tree, tree, bush, tree, fence post—but it quickly makes me feel sick and I focus my gaze inward instead.

The train is easily the nicest place I've ever set foot in, outstripping even our government building where I spent my last queasy half hour in District 10. There's so much food laid out on the table I'm convinced they're serving us (and the rest of the staff of the long train) dinner a good five hours early, but I'm told by a passing servant that it's merely "light refreshments" for us to enjoy. By us he means me, Nora and Aidan. All of that is just for three people. I'm not hungry, and even if I was I almost wouldn't want to touch the spread for fear of defiling it—everything is perfect. Piles of roles lay in baskets lined with red linens, a delicate-looking metal tray in a tapered, pyramid shape holds little cakes and saucers full of liquid in every color I can imagine. There are chilled decanters of gold fluid and something else that's a dark purple—wine, maybe? I can't tell. The entire compartment smells like sweet meats and hot bread and I know I really must be sick to my stomach if I can't even go sample anything. I can't imagine what dinner will be like.

I told myself I'd sit and unwind, but I very soon find that impossible to even attempt. My legs start going, rattling up and down with the almost imperceptible movements of the train, and I get up only to find I didn't really want to go anywhere at all. In no time at all I am the perfect picture of restless energy with no outlet. When I sit, I need movement, and spring to my feet to go to a new spot. When I move, it becomes kinetic madness in my mind, and I need stillness to let the movement seep out of me again. When I try to hum to myself to pass the time, I suddenly need silence; when it's silent, I can't stand it.

Finally I get tired of this endless loop and go to ask a question of the staff member I saw moving off to other parts of the train. I pass through three completely empty other compartments before I find another human being. It's a different person than before, a woman who doesn't look much younger than my mom, and when I ask her if I can watch the broadcasts of the other Reapings across Panem she just smiles at me and shakes her head. I don't know why she isn't answering until it occurs to me and wild heat rushes to my cheeks—she's an Avox, her tongue cut out, and she won't be giving me any sort of replies or further explanation. I stammer out an apology and retreat, not sure why I can't watch the Reapings but not wanting to go off in search of anyone else.

It finally occurs to me I can go check out my room. For a second I don't remember which compartment Nora disappeared into, but after hesitating in front of the doors for a while I remember. I creep into one of the empty ones, shut it behind me, and try to see if it locks. It doesn't, no surprise there. Dark thoughts fill my head as I wonder if there's a reason behind that—maybe one of the previous Tributes tried to, or succeeded in killing himself in here before.

Finally alone, I curl up on my bed, which is so soft and comfortable that it's almost uncomfortable, if that makes any sense. I tuck my knees up to my chest and stare into the open closet, stuffed to the brim with clothes. I frown. It seems stupid to have things to change into when we'll be at the Capitol in less than a day. I decide not to make a move towards any of the clothes unless someone forces me to. Right now my Reaping Day shirt seems like the only familiar thing I have any access to. Everything I own, though it's not a lot in this world, is back home in my small room—my work boots, the two hand-me-down novels that I've read to the point of ruin, my journal full of crazy-person scrawl.

And then a feeling like dread mixed with excitement mixed with shock trills through my throat and I let out a weird, strangled sound. Holy fuck. How could I have not thought of this sooner?

I jolt upright and run to the door before I stop, realizing there's nothing out there that can help me. There's nothing in here, either; there's nothing in the entire world.

This could either be the end of my life or the thing that brings me home. I have no idea how the Capitol will handle it, and I have no idea who I should tell.

* * *

Two years ago I got a taste of what it feels like to be at death's door. It was a lot less intense than I thought it'd be. The pain stopped after a few minutes, which I knew to be a bad sign from what little I'd experienced and learned about medicine. All I can really recall is a heavy feeling in my head and chest, like all my energy was being dragged downward into the hard earth underneath me. It felt like falling asleep, only so much more final.

When I woke up I was in Ten's biggest hospital fighting off one of the worst fevers of my life. My wounds, which had been inflicted on me by some sort of animal, had become infected and hot to the touch. I don't recall a lot of the three weeks I spent drifting in and out of an unnatural, drugged sleep. I know the only reason my family could afford the medical bills was that Dad had been recently promoted.

Going home was a relief like I'd never felt before. I spent most of the next week straight asleep, and no one bugged me or asked me to do anything. If it weren't for the four huge gashes on my shoulder and chest that stung when I bathed, I'd almost think I was on some kind of vacation.

The day before the full moon I felt so different that my parents became alarmed. I went from hobbling weakly from room to room to roaming around the neighborhood, restless and feeling better than I'd felt all month. It was literally an overnight change, and mom kept checking me for fever, worried that the sudden spike of energy was my body reacting to some kind of doped-up brain chemicals brought on by a high temperature. I went back to work, insisting I felt like a million bucks, and that night I slept better than I had in years.

The night of the full moon I was out in the early evening, roaming as near as I dared to the place where I'd been gashed by whatever it was that had encroached on our district boundaries. By all means I should have been terrified to go back to that place, but something about the night seemed to call me there. I'd never been compelled like that by anything before in my life, much preferring logic and rationale to impulse. Now I don't know if maybe it was some kind of benign deity looking out for me, but whatever prompted me to leave my house that night saved not only my life, but my family, and possibly my whole neighborhood as well.

I don't remember the first night at all. I woke up stark naked in the middle of the woods surrounding our district, cold, dirty, and terrified out of my mind. It took me most of the rest of the day to find my way back, and by the time I turned up home, wrapped in stolen linens with bleeding feet, my whole family was hysterical. Well, except for Em, who accused me of staying out all night partying with some girls, as evidenced from my lack of attire.

Dad tried every approach in his book to try to get me to fess up to where I'd been. I got the "you live under my roof and I won't abide by secrets," talk, the "son, you can tell me anything," talk and the "we're really worried about you," talk. I told him the same thing over and over on loop, exhausted, while mom picked broken-off thorn pieces from my heels. "I have no idea where I was or what happened. I'd tell you if I knew."

I learned a bit more from Em, who was the only one not hounding me for information or determined to keep anything from upsetting me. She said it had to be "something in the water" that made everything go nuts the night before, because two dairy cows had been found completely eviscerated and partially devoured, their carcasses dragged up and down the edge of the District. She called me a wuss when I ran to the bathroom to throw up right after hearing that, accusing me of having an unforgivably weak stomach for someone who was part of the slaughterhouse crew.

What followed that was arguably the worst night of sleep I'd ever gotten in my life.

I told myself it was an isolated incident, but I was distracted and clumsy for the next twenty-six days straight. I'd always had a head for numbers and patterns, and I knew there had to be some kind of significance to the fact that I'd been mauled on one full moon and woke up naked in the woods during another full moon. I had no idea what it meant, but it seemed sinister and foreboding.

Luckily mom and dad didn't put the clues together, because it was easy to sneak out of the house the evening of the next full moon. I'd been on model behavior, if a little nervous-looking, all month, and they'd relaxed their guard somewhat.

I remember bits of that night, but it's fragmented with time and shrouded in confusion. I started feeling jittery at first, full of energy and sore, like my skin was just on the verge of breaking out in a wave of violent hives. I started to sweat and it got harder and harder to focus. Adrenaline pumped through my body and a mix of fear and anger propelled me forward, urging me to get away, move, go faster.

What stands out most starkly to me after that is the pain of the transformation itself. I'd seen a coworker get his hand caught in a meat-grinder at the slaughterhouse. He'd pissed himself out of pain, and his screams sometimes woke me at night, featured prominently in some bad dream or other.

I think my own shouts outstripped his that night.

When I change it feels like my bones are bursting through my skin. It starts at the chest, always, my ribs protruding in a pyramid shape, my breastbone stretching my flesh until I'm sure it will split right down the middle, bisecting me. My face starts to go next, and as the shape of my mouth, tongue, and teeth begin to alter, my human cries become something garbled and nightmarish. I can't stand anymore on bending, twisting legs, and my hands shrink and grow at the same time, the fingers melting into my palm while my hands themselves grow into things the size of dinner plates. I'm only happy that I wasn't around anyone during those first two transformations. I know if I had been, I'd be the stuff featured in their night terrors from then on out. That is, if they survived the encounter, which would have been very unlikely.

I've only got flashes of memory from transformation night two. I was out of control, in and out of my mind, running, stopping, sniffing, jumping. I was no better prepared for waking up naked in the woods than I'd been on the first night, but I found my way back to town quicker. Thankfully I had the good sense to sneak into my room through the window, and by some miracle I was able to slip into a tepid bath and scrub down before my parents wondered where I was.

Ever since then I've been better prepared. I head out to the woods every full moon night, stuff some clothes in a tree near where I'll be heading back into town, and change in privacy. I don't know when, exactly, it got easier to control myself, but somewhere around the six or eight-month mark I started to become more and more aware of my body and my actions while in my beast form. I still don't have complete control, but it's better than nothing. I'm at least able to give myself directions, keeping away from the District until the first light of dawn starts to peek through the trees. Then I gradually lead myself back to the District edge, as close as I dare, until I turn back.

For the longest time I'd just pass out, exhausted. About a year ago I taught myself how to stay awake through the turn back, though sometimes I can't manage it and still wind up asleep and naked on the floor. Still, it's better than nothing, and I've been able to drag my dirty self home without alerting my parents every single time. It seems too good to be true, but I figure even if they do notice I'm not home some nights, they aren't saying anything about it. Hopefully they think I've got a girlfriend, as unlikely as that ever was for me.

My greatest fear was always that Em would follow me one night. She normally sleeps like the dead, but when she was younger she used to visit me some nights, letting herself into my room without knocking and nudging me awake to talk about whatever mundane thing was on her mind. I started actively discouraging her from doing this once I started work, since I couldn't really afford the missed sleep, but that only meant Em did it more often to annoy me.

I don't know how I've eluded my parents for the past few years, but I know even less how I've given Em the slip. The only thing I can think is that she has gone into my room a few times during full moons, noticed I'm gone, and decided through some kind of "us against them" sibling pact not to rat me out to our parents. Normally she'd be all over me for explanations the next day, asking me where I'd been or who I was banging, but she's been strangely silent on that front. I fluctuate between thinking it's a blessing, some sort of good karma finally paying off, or wondering with quiet dread if I'm overlooking something or my good luck is about to run out.

Not that I can say turning into a blood-thirsty monster every month and being Reaped for the Hunger Games really counts as good luck.

I've made it out of my compartment and back out to where all the food remains, untouched. It looks like Aidan and Nora have both kept to themselves. I take my spot near the window and lean against it, shutting my eyes tight and trying to focus.

This could be something I can use to my advantage. My most recent moon was only a few days ago. If I'm calculating in my head correctly, my next change will happen while I'm still training. This will be my biggest problem. I could easily trash my room, summon the attention of various guards who I imagine will be posted around the clock to watch us, and end up getting gunned down before I even enter the Games.

If, however, I can keep my secret intact until I'm actually _in _the Games… well, then I only have to survive a few weeks in the actual arena before I turn into a muscle-packed, rabid monster. Surely with my keener nose I can track down and take out a decent chunk of other Tributes that night?

How would Panem even react to that? They seem to have cameras everywhere and I'm sure the Gamemakers won't miss a snarling beast tearing through the other competition. Would they put me down at that point? Or would they let the rampage continue, all for the sake of a good show?

Hell, I'd never met anyone else like me, but maybe my condition is something the Capitol actually knows about. I'd never had the opportunity to ask, and the one doctor I spoke to, in strict, stumbling hypotheticals, seemed baffled at all my questions and concerned I was a little unhinged. Still, that didn't mean it was outside the realm of possibility that there were other people around like me, did it?

My head is spinning so hard by the time I stop crunching numbers, weighing possibilities and stressing myself out that I feel like throwing up. To try to soothe my stomach I stick my head down between my knees and link my hands together at the back of my neck, concentrating for a while on just breathing slowly. It's doing absolutely nothing to help, but it makes me feel marginally better to go through the motions.

What are my options? Nothing, really. I've never, not once, been able to stave off the change. Stands to reason I won't suddenly gain that ability now. Once I'm in the arena there's a very good chance I'm dead no matter what I do; a very good chance, in fact, that I won't even make it to that full moon. There's nothing I can do about it once I'm in the arena. Everything will turn into "stay alive any way you can" at that point, and there's no use thinking about that.

What I _do _need to think about is how I'm even going to make it that far. They could be watching me transform in my room a short three weeks from now, and who knows what will happen to me then? My only option is to keep it from everyone, any way I can.

My heart immediately sinks at that idea. Fat chance. Like there's any way I can conceal the screams of agony, rending flesh, and subsequent growling, snarling and howling that I become once a month. Much less in a cushy Capitol suite. I'm fucked.

I move in a certain way and something crinkles in my shirt pocket. I pause, wondering if I left a note or some list of mom's grocery requests in there from last year. In a moment a creased slip of paper is in my hands, and I smooth it out so I can make out what it is. One side is an old hand-written receipt from one of our many butchers. The other side has a hastily-scrawled note in my mother's slanted script.

_We know about your secret. Use it. Ask your Mentor to help._

Of all the reactions to have, all I manage is to mutter out, "huh," in a tone of dull wonder, like someone just told me a seldom-known piece of trivia. I flip the paper over again to look at the reciept, as if that will have some sort of better explanation for me. Then I sit back against the bench seat and stare straight ahead, through the glamorous spread of food, through the other slick metal wall of the train, through the rest of the world and out into space. For all outer appearances, inside I am anything but calm.

I'm not as stealthy, or as lucky, as I had thought. My family knew about me all along. I let out a short bark of a laugh, chastising myself for every fooling myself into thinking they didn't suspect. Who was I fooling? It all seemed so painfully impossible in retrospect.

My parents knew, and here they were, encouraging me in a cryptic note to harness my change to slaughter the competition and come home to them. It hadn't even occurred to me until this second that I'd been contemplating, seriously and genuinely, how to dismember other live humans in a little over a month. It should have given me more pause, shouldn't have taken seeing my mother's handwriting to finally cause the quick flame of guilt that burst through my stomach. _Mom is telling me to go kill people. _

I live in a version of reality that no longer has an up or down, left or right, and it becomes clear to me in a moment of knife-sharp epiphany that I have to adapt to this, and fast, or I will be dead far before I ever reach the arena.

Another thing becomes clear to me and settles in my stomach, growing spines and taking root.

I'm going to have to come clean to Aidan about what I am.

I only hope he'll believe me, and after that, actually decide to help me.


	3. Stylist

I don't know what I expected in all of this—to be honest, there really wasn't any precedent so it would be wrong to say I had expectations at all. Still, I guess I thought I'd see Nora or Aidan at dinner. Or at some point before I went to sleep. I am wrong.

I don't go to sleep so much as nod off in the dining car. My room doesn't feel natural and I can't seem to fight off an intense claustrophobia while in there, even though it's more spacious than my living room area at home. I don't know how long I am out, but I know it has to be past four in the morning when I finally drop off.

When Aidan emerges from wherever he was stowed away, I am the first person he encounters. He doesn't wake me when he enters the room, and as a result the soft, almost inaudible sound of him putting the lid back on the marmalade jolts me awake from the deepest part of my tense sleep. I jump and slam my foot painfully against the train's windowsill, stifling a grunt of pain as I struggle to understand how much time has gone by.

Aidan turns to me, toast and jam in one hand and a cup of orange liquid in the other. His sunglasses are gone. The first thing I notice is that his eyes are so dark they might as well be black. The second thing is that he's looking at me with a complete lack of interest, as if he couldn't be more disengaged if he tried. It's what I'd feared most.

"Jumpiness doesn't serve well in the Games."

So, apparently Aidan is not only astoundingly uncommunicative and scarce, but he's useless too. At least, this is my first impression.

Still, dad's words and mom's note are burned on my brain, my new mantra. _Get Aidan to help._ "Any…" I begin, swiveling my sore foot around and shrugging, "advice… on that?"

Aidan just stares at me. "We're not going to be able to undo what looks like a lifetime of jumpiness in one month."

It's a battle to keep the frustration and shock off my face but I lose the battle with my brain-to-mouth filter. "So… that was just you, stating the obvious, then. No suggestions on this character flaw whatsoever."

For a while Aidan just chews. I regret talking back to him during our very first encounter, but desperation has replaced whatever semblance of grogginess I had. Still, maybe if I stand my ground here Aidan will respect me, or some crap. Who knows what shades of screwed up past Victors are. I wish I'd paid more attention to dad while he was psychoanalyzing them, because my new goal in life is to become one.

Aidan finishes chewing and finally makes an expression. He lifts one eyebrow for a second, but it somehow feels like a small victory. What he says next deflates my sense of accomplishment.

"I don't bother giving advice on day one. None of it sticks. For now, just enjoy the food."

I can hardly believe it. Aidan's had, at most, a decade of tributes. Earlier that had been an unthinkable amount, but now that number seems downright low. How can he lump all of us into one category without so much as attempting to get to know us first?

It's a day of impulses, it seems. The words are out before I can stop them.

"No wonder we haven't had a Victor from Ten since you."

I guess if this were a novel Aidan would have leapt at me for a right hook or threatened me or burst into tears. The most I get is a small, quick frown, like he's mildly annoyed with me. Before I can figure out what to do next, Nora's door slides open down the hall.

Aidan turns to her and gives her a half-nod in greeting. Her arms are clasped around herself, but though her posture is vulnerable her face is anything but. She doesn't even nod back to Aidan, just staring him down.

"You starting the training?" she asks, and I'm completely aware of the note of accusation in her voice.

"No," I say, trying and failing to not sound sullen. "Aidan doesn't train on the first day, apparently."

Nora turns her critical gaze from me to our Mentor, who is now looking a little more outwardly exasperated. "It's not the first day, anymore. It's five in the morning on day two."

"She has a point," I rush to chime in, shoving my hands in my pockets and trying to look nonchalant.

Aidan looks from Nora to me, clearly not amused by this mutiny. He gestures to the food, which now features a breakfast spread I hadn't fully noticed before.

"Sit. Eat. We'll talk after that."

I guess I'm a little sullen that it took Nora chiming in to get a reaction from Aidan, but at least we got some headway with him. He moves off towards the other end of the train car, doing something with a cabinet, and I stop paying attention to him. I hate to admit it, hate to take anything the Capitol offers me, but I'm starving. All the worry and agitation feels like it's eaten a hole in my core, and I want to fill that with food. I sit down at the table, take a moment to be overwhelmed by the choices, and begin piling my plate high with food.

Nora is less eager to eat. She remains where she is, looking out the window, her arms still loosely hugged around her body. I'm halfway through a breakfast roll that tastes somehow sweet compared to what I get back home. After struggling to swallow a mouthful that was a little too ambitious, I say, "You should eat, it's good."

Nora gives me an icy look and I flinch a little, going back to my plate. Can she really still hold a grudge against me for some awkward flirting a few years ago? We're on a train speeding towards almost certain death for both of us. It seems useless to hold onto things like that now.

She seems to change her mind about the food at least after I'm halfway through wolfing down my own plate. She picks up one of the rolls and pours herself a glass of the orange liquid, but refuses to sit. She eats quietly and slowly, tearing off chunks of bread and dipping them into the liquid, managing to make even eating breakfast look sullen and mutinous.

Aidan has finished with whatever he was doing, and is heading back to the table. I glance over and see that he's hooked up a television projector screen against the far wall of the train, and my interest is immediately piqued.

"I assume you will want to watch the Reapings to see who else you're up against. We can do that for now. No point getting into anything more intense before the train stops. We'll be at the Capitol in a little under an hour."

"Alright," I say, eager to try to mend some bridges here. I don't want Aidan to think I'm totally ungrateful, though something tells me he probably doesn't think about Nora or me enough to even form an opinion one way or another. Aidan taps a few buttons on a remote control and then the Capitol anthem is playing behind an image of the national seal of Panem.

At once I want a notebook. There's no way I'll remember 22 other names and faces otherwise. I struggle to pay attention and try to come up with mnemonic devices to commit the first few names to memory, but I soon give up. It's not like the Reapings really tell us anything about the other Tributes right away. We can only gauge who we're up against based on their physical appearance, whether or not they volunteered, and how they behave during the Reaping itself.

I categorize some people as threats at once: there are two Career Tributes from Two, and judging by the fact that they both have the same last name, McLean, I'm guessing they're siblings. Why they would volunteer together, knowing only one has a shot of coming home alive, I have no clue. Neither looks upset to be up against one another in the Games, though. In fact, both look eager, glad that no one else got to volunteer to take the spots they strove to get. Meanwhile there's a redheaded girl from Four with keen, dark eyes who looks like she'd tear out my throat with her bare hands if given the chance. The look in her eyes puts me off my appetite. I try to remember her name, but by the time the Reapings are half over I've forgotten it. All I know is it struck me as more of a boy's name than a girl's.

Other Tributes I chalk up as no threat, though I do have a pang of sympathy for some. There are two very young Tributes, a boy from Three named Stevie and a girl from Seven named Erin. I think there might be something going on between the Tributes from Eight—they can't seem to stop looking at one another with a sort of desperate helplessness on the stage.

I almost forget that Ten's coming up after Nine, and when I spot Mayor Westin I blanch, whatever's left of my appetite vanishing. I tell myself to watch, to try to look at myself objectively and see whether I look like predator or prey, but I can't bring myself to. _What's the point?_ I reason. _I can't go back in time and change how I looked._

When our District is done it's just Eleven and Twelve that are left. A shocker comes from the female Tribute from Eleven. She's buff, tall, and built, her eyes dangerous and full of warning. She has to be eighteen, and I realize that I do not want to face her in a fight. It's rare that one of the outlying Districts, Ten, Eleven or Twelve, has such a terrifying contender. The girl from Twelve is crying during the Reaping, but the boy looks calm. I can't quite tell, but it even looks like he might be _smiling_.

All-in-all, I am not looking forward to these Games.

* * *

The train arrives at the Capitol station about ten minutes after the Reapings recording finishes. Nora and I are told to change into something from our closets, and I note with some amusement that we chose matching colors. We're both in light blue and light gray, and it looks like we deliberately picked the least flashy items available to us. Aidan makes no comment on this one way or another, and soon we're ushered out the doors and into a narrow, roped-off walkway lined on either side with screaming citizens.

I have never seen so many eye-bleeding colors all gathered in one place before. I think I actually squint at the sight of the crowd, and when hundreds of flashes go off a second later I coach myself vehemently not to make any more stupid faces.

Aidan's got his sunglasses back on and I feel a momentary stab of jealousy. I need to get me some of those to hide the obvious fear and nausea that's no doubt showing all too clearly on my face. Aidan and Nora match in a way as we make our way through the masses struggling to reach out and get a feel of our sleeves or hair as we pass. They both wear expressions that are utterly cold and unreadable. I feel like the odd one out more than ever.

I'm near collapse from nerves and social exhaustion by the time we get to our training center. The building is massive, easily three times as tall as the tallest factory in Ten. I crane my neck to peer at the top of the structure before we vanish into the sliding glass doors. I think I make out a banner strung out over the top, something about "Welcome Tributes!" but I can't read all of it before we're in the lobby.

I guess we're the third-to-last to arrive, living farther away from the Capitol than nine of the other Districts, and they've likely staggered our arrival so each set of Tributes gets their own chance at the spotlight. No other familiar faces are in the lobby as we make our way to the elevators. The person at the front desk, who is a perfect mix of screaming pink and seizure yellow, is beaming broadly at us with teeth that are dyed in those alternating colors. It makes me weirdly queasy to look at that sort of body modification, and Nora elbows me in the side to get my attention. I guess I've been blocking her way into the elevator, which arrived far earlier than I had expected it to. Aidan, Nora and I are shuttled inside and the doors hiss shut behind us, cutting out all of the muffled shouts from outside and the typing and phone chatter from various staff members in the lobby. It's eerie how complete the silence is as we're whisked upwards. The elevator reminds me of the train. I can barely detect any movement whatsoever.

"Where are we going?" Nora abruptly asks Aidan, though she doesn't turn to look at him. Instead she's staring out through the windows of the glass elevator, watching the steadily-retreating floor. I can't quite bring myself to do the same. Heights have never really been my thing.

"Makeup and wardrobe," Aidan answers simply. "You'll be scrubbed down and dolled up all day, so prepare yourselves for many hours of sitting around."

This is something that takes me a little off-guard. I know I should have expected this, but it slipped my mind in light of everything else. The opening ceremony would be tonight. I had just been recovering from the crowd and the flashing lights of the press, but my stomach drops and churns all over again at this prospect.

"Wonderful," Nora drawls, and I manage a small, sickly smirk at that. In a way I have to admire her gumption here. Even if it's all an act, she seems so much tougher than I am in light of all this new and frightening stuff.

"It's why I don't bother coaching right away," Aidan adds, and he gives me what might be a pointed look behind his sunglasses. "When you're done being paraded around for the Capitol tonight I doubt you'll even remember your own names."

I'm not sure what to say to that, so I say nothing. Nora and I are dropped off on a very high floor, and Aidan stays in the elevator while we're escorted elsewhere by a pair of Avoxes. I guess I should be a little happy, I reason. At least my jab seemed to have made some impression on Aidan, if he felt the need to elaborate on his reasoning all these hours later.

* * *

All thoughts of Aidan are shoved from my mind as soon as the "scrubbing" process begins. I realize Aidan was not very descriptive when he told us what we'd be up against. The process should be called "violent exfoliation" or perhaps "the war on skin cells." I'm raw and pink by the time my prep team is done attacking every surface of my body with hard, bristly brushes and sponges, though I'm awarded a few compliments for my general compliance and lack of complaining. I have to wonder if my skin will recover on time for the ceremony tonight, but I suppose these folks know what they're doing.

"You smell like raw meat," one of my prep team members notes, wrinkling her nose. It makes the three rings on either side of her nostrils jingle. "Though luckily no one will be close enough to smell you on the chariot ride. Except your District partner, that is."

"She's lovely, isn't she?" another prep team member chimes in, leaning forward over me like I'm nothing more than a piece of furniture. I shift away from his body the best I can, as his considerable belly is pressed up against my naked side. "So gorgeous, I envy the others getting to work with her. Rare to get someone so pretty from Ten."

_Thanks_, I think, though I guess I wouldn't want to be coined "pretty." Still, they're right—Nora's a lot easier on the eyes than I am, and I wonder in the end if that'll mean more sponsors for her. It gives rise to a complicated feeling that's a blend between jealous and disappointed in myself for feeling jealous.

I'm getting genuinely worried about our timeframe by the time my prep team is putting the finishing touches on my nails. Why they want to pay attention to my feet, when they'll be encased in shoes, is beyond me. I've lost all sense of minutes and hours since I was shoved into this curtained partition, and for all I know it's been weeks since they started plucking, waxing, tweezing, buffing and shining. Is there even going to be time for my Stylist to do anything? Right when I'm working up the gumption to break my mute streak and ask when I'll be seeing him or her, my prep team leader claps her hands. Her nails are so long it's a wonder she was able to navigate my body around them.

"Okay, that's as good as you're going to get. We'll go find Sally now!"

I guess Sally is my stylist. I nod silently and they bustle out in a squabbling mass.

It occurs to me that I'll be working with Sally almost nonstop until the Games begin, probably seeing about as much of her as I see of Aidan, and the thought gives me pause. The only females I've ever interacted (successfully) with have been Em and my mom, and maybe one or two of the wives of dad's fellow factory workers. I silently hope that Sally is an older, matronly sort, and that I won't feel hopelessly embarrassed to parade around in front of her naked.

The curtained doors slide open with a metallic ring of metal on metal, and my hopes are dashed. Sally can't be much older than me. She's wearing a broad, almost maniacal smile and her black, wavy hair is done through with streaks of violet and magenta. She has some magenta eyeshadow to go with it and a lot of silver bangles on her wrists, but other than that she looks pretty tame for someone who lives in the Capitol. Well, except for her expression. That's just downright terrifying.

"You're Josh, then," she says, and I note with some satisfaction that she hasn't taken to calling me "Joshua" the way just about everyone else has. It's one less thing I'll have to mention to her. "Well, not bad, Josh. You're kind of a looker, in a doe-eyed, puppy-dog way."

I'm not sure how to take that comment, so I just frown slightly and give a half-shrug. I realize I'm still keeping with my selective mutism the same moment Sally says, "So, uh… you _do_ talk, right?"

"Um, right," I say, trying to think of something to add to the end of that sentence to prove that I'm funny and witty, but failing miserably.

"Oh, good. I mean, even if you _didn't_ speak we could get by, paint you up to be the mysterious, silent sort, but I won't lie. It helps to be able to actually _talk_ to your interviewer." Sally has moved over to me now and is undoing the ties at the back of my paper gown with deft fingers. Heat rushes into my face and it takes all my willpower not to jerk away from her.

She catches it, though. I suppose that's a good trait for a stylist to have—an eye for details and little tells. "Aww!" she says, clasping her hands momentarily in front of her chest. "How cute, you're not used to undressing in front of girls, huh?"

Again, I'm not sure how to take this. My prep team had been blatantly condescending, failing to even treat me like I was a person who was capable of overhearing them and being offended, but everything Sally says seems like it toes the line between a fond compliment or a slight insult. Not that anything she's said isn't _true_, though… I _am_ inexperienced getting naked around girls. I settle for a shrug, then manage to unstick my throat and tack on, "I mean, it's no big deal. It's your job, I'll be—I'm fine."

Sally lets out a sound that is a lot like "squee!" and does a little dance with her hands up in front of her, clenched into fists. "You are so fucking _adorable_! This is gonna be great, I won't have any problems with you! I know exactly what I'll do with you."

At that last statement an almost predatory look comes to Sally's face and I'm sure I blanch at it. I'm not sure I like the sound of that.

* * *

_Author's Note: YAY! I have two whole readers now! Thank you to paramourconspiracy for your reviews on my work :) Made my day!_


	4. In the Chariot

I need to just give up trying to predict anything that will happen to me from now on. Sally's idea of "adorable" is considerably different from mine. I'd been scared she was going to put me in some sort of farmboy getup, or dress me like a baby cow. I'd seen worse before on the televised Games in previous years.

The end result is just about as far away from my original fear as it is possible to be. I can only assume Nora matches me, but it's a long time before I'll be able to see for myself. Sally finished the bulk of the work early, but pops into my curtained partition frequently to do touch-ups and make sure I haven't "ruined myself." Still, it's an hour before the opening ceremony is set to start and I'm experiencing something I hadn't thought I ever would again—boredom.

It's really, really difficult not to pick at Sally's work. It itches in some places and she did such a good job when I look down at myself it's hard not to believe what I see is real. It's a little unsettling, but I'm alright if I don't study it too hard.

When my prep team finally bustles back in to collect me for the chariot ride, I'm almost happy to go. Waiting for anything is usually worse than just getting the thing in question over with, and I'm hoping this will be one of those times.

It occurs to me as I'm lead through a hallway, the sound of a restless crowd getting louder and louder, that this will be the first time I'm seeing a lot of the competition up-close. That means two things; it's an opportunity for me to study them, and it's also an opportunity for them to study me. I try to straighten my back and lengthen my stride. Wishing sorely my face wasn't always such an open book, I clench and unclench my fists at my sides to try to work off some of the nervous energy, and reach up without thinking about it to scratch at my neck.

Sally materializes out of nowhere and waves her hands frantically around mine, managing to halt my progress without actually touching me. "_Don't… scratch_," she warns, sounding terrifying. I slide my hand back down to my side and try to will the itch on my neck to vanish, which just makes me focus on it more.

Then I see Nora and all thoughts of discomfort flee from my mind.

She does match me, but only in the sense that whoever her Stylist is took Sally's lead and used the same makeup and wardrobe techniques on her. That's where the similarities end. I think I look a little creepy and weird, but maybe that's because I always think I look that way. Nora looks a breathtaking combination of beautiful and absolutely horrifying.

Her blond hair is down around her shoulders in careful, understated waves, and the tips are smudged with red where they make contact with her skin. Like me, she's been spared of anything but slight makeup on her face, what looks like a bit of eyeliner and eyeshadow to make her features pop, but that all ends once her pale skin dips down to her collarbone. From there to the tips of her fingers and toes, across every inch of her body, are lashmarks, ligatures, huge swatches of skin missing, and bloody patches of flesh. She sees me staring and, instead of giving me a death glare, gives me a small smirk. She's examining my makeup too, and does a little spin for me so I can see her back. My jaw drops. Is that what I look like, too? For all appearances it looks as if the skin has been stripped away from Nora's back, shoulder to hip, in two huge swatches the way we might skin a cow for its leather. "Poking out" of her back on either side of her spine are three sets of hooks, some broken off jaggedly and some with fractured bits of chain still trailing off them. It looks exactly as if Nora had savagely pulled herself free of the meathooks and booked it to freedom outside the slaughterhouse using sheer muscle alone.

I had questioned Sally's idea in my mind, wondering why any Tributes would want to wear a costume that essentially announced, "we're already dead meat!" for the opening ceremony. Now I understand her reasoning. Nora and I aren't dead. We're survivors, bloodied and undefeatable against all odds.

Nora makes her way over to me and I have to will myself to look at her face, for once not because I've been caught giving someone a pervy once-over. She's still smiling, looking tired but also somehow excited, and a hell of a lot friendlier than I've ever seen her before.

"Do I look even half as scary and cool as you do?" I ask her, and she rolls her eyes and chuckles.

"You look terrifying. Let me see your back?" she asks, and I turn to oblige. I hear her gasp out a little sound. "Oh, wow. That's amazing. I can't really… you know, get an angle, to look at how mine is done. It looks so _real_."

"I know, right?" I say, turning back around. It's so unspeakably nice to be talking to someone who isn't from the Capitol, and the relief that floods through me, hot and bright, takes me a little off-guard. I hadn't even realized how isolated I'd been feeling until Nora came over here and broke the silence. "I mean, I look down and think, 'oh, jeez, isn't this supposed to hurt?'"

Nora chuckles again, lifting her hand to partially block her face while she does it. It's such a surprisingly demure gesture for a girl who looks like a warrior goddess fresh from a slaughter. "No kidding." Before I can say anything else, though, Sally is back, and is directing us over into a larger room where, I assume, the chariots are waiting to be boarded.

And there goes my warm little bubble of happiness from social interaction. Sally hands me something and I take it, not even paying attention to what it is at first. Only when I hear Nora go, "oh, huh," do I look at the object. It's a wickedly curved handheld scythe, the sort we would honestly probably never use in the slaughterhouse. Not that I expect the citizens of the Capitol will know this. It's also covered in "blood." I glance up at Nora and see she has a hacked-off piece of what looks like an upright saw, broken in a jagged, dangerous line. It looks painful to hold, but I guess it only looks sharp since she isn't wincing.

Sally nudges us with a carefully-placed prod to some of our only patches of untouched skin and directs us to the chariot. The chariot is dark metal, old and rusty, but it somehow doesn't look pathetic. Instead of giving the idea of a ride that's fallen into disrepair, it looks like it's built with the steady, rock-solid dependability of a machine that will never break down. It isn't flashy, so it doesn't draw any attention away from the bloody spectacle of its Tributes.

That's not the most striking thing about it, though.

"Oh," Nora says, making a face as she sees what will be pulling our chariot. "Is that—I mean, is that okay? Are those allowed?"

"Those" are two enormous steers, their horns polished to a high shine, their shiny black hides immaculately clean. Muscles ripple under their backs and I find it impossible to believe they are trained. No animals that huge and virile will trot nicely while pulling our chariot along, will they?

"I looked it up," Sally said, sounding so pleased with herself she's likely to burst. "There's no law, by-law, sub-section or amendment to the handbook that says it _has_ to be a horse that pulls the chariot. And even if they don't like it, it's too late for them to complain now!"

It seems both suicidal and also slightly unfair. Surely the Gamemakers wouldn't want us to have an unfair advantage over the other contenders because they all have horses and we have decidedly non-horse transportation. We'll stand out, and not because of how we're dressed or made-up. I know that should make me happy—I need all the help I can get making a big splash—but it somehow feels like we'll get in trouble for this.

Assuming we survive being pulled around by these 3,000 pound beasts.

Either way, I don't have a lot of time to agonize about it. Sally corrals us up onto the chariot, I almost fall on my face, and almost before I've righted myself we're moving into position.

It's a short jaunt down a larger hallway and then we're in a staging area right in the thick of the excited babble from what sounds like every single citizen of the Capitol. We're still in shadow, but I can see the chariot holding the District 1 Tributes pulling out into the flashes of thousands of bulbs. I can only squint and see that their chariot is gold, matching their outfits, when Two goes next.

Instead of focusing on the Tributes farther up who I can't make out very well, I decide to take a look at Nine and Eight, the only ones who are in convenient eyeshot. It's still a little shady in here, and the flashing lights from outside are distracting, but I can make out the backs of the four Tributes' heads.

The boy is tall, but built enough that he doesn't look gangly. He's darkly tanned and has thick, black wavy hair. The girl beside him doesn't look as calm as he does, if her fidgeting posture is anything to go by. She has dark hair, maybe red, and it's done up in a bunch of braids that fall free around her shoulders. Both Tributes from Nine are wearing white linen wraps and are done up with stylized, golden grain designs.

Up ahead of them, the Tributes from Eight are holding onto each other with a sort of unabashed, terrified affection. I remember those two from the televised Reapings—I'd suspected they had some sort of connection before being Reaped. Now I'm almost sure they're dating. What horrendous luck. The girl is short, and I can see the curve of her rounded cheek as she looks up at the boy, who is tall and broad in the shoulder, classically good looking. Their costumes are patchworks of different sorts of material, and it takes me a second to remember why. _Right_, I think. _Textiles_. It's hard to remember what all the other Districts do since we get so little news about them, and zero contact with them. It's almost not worth it to remember.

Ahead of Eight I can only make out a few key features and people; I can see the frightening redhead girl from Four, mainly because her chariot has moved closer to the entrance and the light is hitting her. I can see that the Tributes from Five seem to be sparking with electricity. I'm tempted to cast a glance behind me to the Tributes from Eleven and Twelve, but something stops me. I don't want to be caught looking curious. I don't know how, exactly, but it feels like that would be seen as weakness. Hell, what_ won't_ be seen as weakness, here?

In no time it's our turn, and I turn to glance at Nora, painfully regretting that we hadn't done any planning before now. Should we wave? Smile? Growl? She gives me a look that, at first glance, seems angry, but is actually just a hard-edged look of nerves. We don't say anything to one another, but as our steers lumber their way forward, following the path of the chariot from Nine, an unspoken agreement seems to pass between us.

If we're covered in blood and meant to look scary, it'll just look dumb if we ham it up. I set my jaw and stare forward, realizing belatedly that my weapon is hidden by my thigh. It feels stupid to hold it up in the air, so I lift it instead to chest-height, looking down at it as if I'm studying it carefully. My other hand is grasping the front of the chariot so tight my knuckles would be bleached white if they weren't covered in red. I don't know what Nora's doing beside me, but I'm sure she's doing it better than I am.

The crowd, I realize belatedly, is gasping and muttering. It's tempting to take a look at them, but it's like I'm 'in character" now and I don't want to break it. I can hear the flashes and shouts, see the lights in the corners of my eyes, and I decide to stop looking at my blade like I'm not sure what it is and instead look forward.

It's so hard not to look around like an idiot. But I've committed to the "play it cool" routine and I'm going to do it, dammit. There are drums sounding on either side of us, the national anthem thundering out impossibly loud, and there are moving images and lights up at the sides of the walls that struggle to grab my attention every few feet. It feels like I've aged twenty years by the time our steers pull up to the designated spot in a semicircle before the podium at the front of the ceremony hall. I'm peripherally surprised that they haven't begun bucking and rampaging yet.

Hegeman, who has been silently watching us from the raised platform, puts a hand in the air and silences the entire crowd in that creepy way only political figures can. I don't know why we don't call him "President Hegeman"—for as long as I can remember he's been just Hegeman. It would almost give you the impression that he's one of those "call me Bob!" sort of leaders, striving to be more personable by dropping the title and honorific. The truth is the opposite. Hegeman seems more frightening for the fact that he only has the one known name.

"Ladies and Gentleman," Hegeman says in his quiet voice, amplified so it carries, "Tributes. Welcome to the opening ceremony of the 49th Annual Hunger Games." There's no flourish or oomph in his tone. There never is. He just says it like it is and the crowd goes wild anyway. Hegeman lets them, then silences them again with one hand.

I thought I'd pay more attention to his opening speech this year, since it's _my_ opening speech, but it goes in one ear and out the other. Hegeman is a creature of habit, and he does the opening ceremony exactly the same way, every single year, without fail. It's even verbatim. Tradition is supremely important to him and I suddenly wonder if it irks him that we came in riding behind non-horses. I glance up at Hegeman's face, studying, trying to see behind the calm facade the way my dad would. It's no use, though. I can't tell.

He looks so normal, so average. He's gone almost completely bald over the years, though his neatly-trimmed salt-and-pepper goatee is still in place. He wears the same thing every time I see him televised—a white shirt buttoned strictly up to his neck under a V-neck black jacket. No Capitol bling, no colors. You'd think it would make him look awkward, but instead it just makes him look scary.

While Hegeman wraps up I sneak a look around to the other chariots, trying to be surreptitious just in case the cameras are on me right at that moment. I'm able to see District 11 better, and my eyes fall immediately on the intimidating, dark-skinned girl, tall, strong, fierce and stoic. Her district partner, by contrast, is very forgettable. He's shorter than she is by about half a head, and his dark hair and brown eyes, though done up with the golden grain head-dress and markings around his face, still make me feel like I'll have a hard time picking him out of a crowd later on.

The girl from Twelve looks like she's on the verge of tears. They're coal miners again this year, which is unfortunate… their outfits are drab and dull, two things the Capitol doesn't seem to have a lot of sympathy for. The boy, however, is staring right back at me, and I jerk slightly as I meet his eyes, not expecting it. He's giving me a curious, cold smile, and I decide at once I don't like him, and that I'm also done looking around the room. I turn to face forward again just as the ceremony wraps up and the steeds (and steers) begin to trot us back the way we came. Not a moment too soon, either; I can feel I'm starting to sweat, in spite of being shirtless and wearing only artfully tattered shorts.

Sally is waiting for us in the alcove with both hands clenched up below her chin and a huge, bright grin in place. Her whole frame is vibrating with energy and she almost doesn't wait until we're secure before jumping up onto the chariot with us and yanking both of us quite suddenly into a big hug. "Your clothes—" I protest, watching with dismay as her arms and top get smeared with red, but Sally apparently couldn't care less.

"That was great, that was _phenomenal_!" She pulls back, one of my latex gore wounds clinging to her left forearm and coming free from my skin with a small slap of snapping rubber. "I know you couldn't hear down there over the crowd, but you two were _all_ the announcers could talk about!"

"Thanks," Nora says, sounding breathless and exhausted. "I don't… mean to be rude, or anything, but that's it for today? Right? We can…?"

I know what she means and I echo her sentiment, "Sleep? Maybe?"

Sally puts one hand each at the backs of our heads, still beaming at us, riding the high of her admittedly brilliant costuming success. "Absolutely! Go see the prep teams, they'll get the worst of it off and then you can take showers and crash out upstairs."

"Um—" I ask, just knowing I need to ask Sally something a second before my tired brain supplies the actual question. "Oh. Ah, do you know where Aidan is staying?"

"With you," Sally says simply. "If you need to talk to him he should be up there by now. If not he probably just got caught up in some Capitol networking bullshit."

I glance around the room. More than a few Tributes are giving us curious, or challenging looks, but I notice one thing they all have that we don't. A Mentor. Every single other District has their Mentor or Mentors leading the Tributes to the line of elevators, escorting them to wherever their quarters are. Nora and I stare at the crowd near the elevators, still perched atop our chariot, uncertain about when or where to go.

Sally seems to realize this. "Oh! You don't know where—sorry, of course you wouldn't know. I forgot they take you to me immediately from the train. Well!" She performs a little bow by the stairs leading down from the chariot, beckoning Nora and I to disembark like royalty. "Follow me."

It's hard, almost impossible to tell with Sally, but I wonder if maybe she's a little put off by the fact that she's taking on what is, evidently, supposed to be one of Aidan's responsibilities after a full day of dressing us up. I know I'd be upset.

* * *

Sally stands by while the prep teams scrub us down, and though my skin is still raw from the first washing and everything stings, I can't bring myself to care. Nora and I have matching thousand-yard stares and only respond to direct orders: lift your arms, turn around, close your eyes. When we're done Sally leads us to the elevators, all but cleared out of Tributes and Mentors heading up now, and we spend a quiet half a minute being delivered in silent, eerily motionless efficiency to the 10th floor.

"This whole floor is yours, and you can pick which of the bedrooms you like," Sally says, her exuberance fading now into a calmer, comforting tone. I guess she can tell how frazzled and worn down we are. "I wish I could say you guys get to sleep in tomorrow, but it'll be another full day."

"What _is_ happening tomorrow, anyway?" I ask, curious though I can't bring myself to really care right now. I know it'll matter to me tomorrow and it's better to ask than to risk Aidan keeping up his streak of not informing us of anything.

"Training," Sally explains. "There'll be a week of it in the special area they set up for you downstairs."

"Already?" Nora asks, not sounding affronted or shocked, but more disappointed and weary.

"Fraid so. You'll have time to talk over some strategy with Aidan tonight or tomorrow morning, though, so try not to fret too much."

I snort. "Yeah, right. Aidan."

I don't know what possessed me to say it in front of Sally. Though she's been cool and helpful, there's no reason for me to trust anyone from this place, and yet I find it hard to believe she'd punish me or rat me out for speaking ill of my AWOL Mentor. Indeed, all she does is give me a sympathetic look, and after a faltering pause, she says, "I know he's not the easiest to work with, but trust me when I say there are others out there who are actually way, way worse. Just give it a little time. I know he seems distant and hands-off, but it's a front. He'll help you all he can."

I find that almost impossible to believe, but I give Sally a tired, grateful smile nonetheless. Nora seems to be asleep standing up, and we take that as our cue to head inside, shower and sleep. Sally bids us farewell at the elevators, waving as they slide shut and block her from view.

"You buy it?" Nora asks once we're in the living quarters, reorienting ourselves to the impressive, sprawling suite. It takes me a second to figure out what she must mean.

"About Aidan? Dunno. Sally probably knows better than we do, but…" I gesture to the opulent, expansive, and utterly uninhabited floor, "he's not here. Again."

Nora snorts. "Yeah. Worst case scenario, we better be prepared to go this alone."

I nod, weary, and we part ways in the hall, branching off in an unspoken agreement to what will now be our new rooms. I wish I could appreciate the understated elegance of the bedroom I've unwittingly chosen. I was worried it would be bright pink or something, but it's actually pretty nice. Unfortunately all that's on my mind is showering and sleeping.

I almost doze off in the shower, once finding the sweet spot of temperature that feels so divine I could conceivably stay in there forever. I scrub the rest of the paint from crevices and nooks the prep team hadn't paid especially close attention to, knowing someone else will come along tomorrow and nitpick at all the spots I miss anyway. My elbow jabs a button on the wall halfway through my shower and a thick spout of green foam covers me, shocking me out of my daze. When I finally figure out how to turn it off I reek of freshly-cut grass.

At least I don't smell like meat anymore, I guess.

I almost don't see the book when I head straight to the bed to flop on it. I manage to twist my body and land next to it, versus on it, and reach out at once to snatch it up. It's a leatherbound notebook, and a cursory flip through the pages reveals that they all appear to be blank. Grateful but puzzled, I flip back to the first page and a handwritten note slides out.

_Josh—_

_Your parents told me before we left that you'd be wanting something like this. Not sure why, but here it is. Just realize you can't take a book into the Games as your token. Hardbacks can be considered weapons and even soft-covers, like these, could be seen as an unfair advantage if you use the paper as kindling for a fire._

_—A_

I stare at the note, perplexed and unable to pin down the other emotions. To say I'm surprised is an understatement. Just when I'd been ready to write Aidan off as a dead-end, he offers me a curveball. I turn the book over and over in my hands, frowning at the quality of the soft, smooth cover and the thick, creamy pages inside. Unsure what possesses me to do it, I lift the book to my face and inhale a deep lungful of the treated leather. Unbidden, a sharp prickling comes to my throat and my eyes. It smells like home.

Never thought I'd miss that scent.

I mean to go to sleep, but I can't. With the book and a pen soon in hand, I'm filling up the first quarter of the pages with notes, observations, questions, concerns—every single thing I can think of that I need to get out of my head and down onto paper to focus myself and keep sane. I leave pages blank for more info on the other Tributes, once I'm able to analyze them further, jot down ideas for what I might say in my interview, and question upon question for Aidan, in the hopes that he'll maybe be around to respond to them. My hand is aching by the time my body clocks out on me, overriding my desperate urge to record and scribble, and I fall asleep on top of the book, cheek pressed into the pages, breathing in the scent of District 10. It's the nicest night of sleep I've had in months.


End file.
